The Guix package manager is a higly reproducable and stable package manager based on the Nix package manager. It wan made by the FSF, meaning that it allows ou to install a variety of 100% free software. The reproducability and saftey that comes with the Gnu Guix package manager is unrivaled. You may be tempted to install the “Gnu Guix System”, however you can instal the Gnu Guix package manager on any existing Gnu/Linux system. I am going to show you how you can install and use the Guix package manager.
Unrelated question: I am tired of what I consider bloat on Xfce. Trying to remove packages such as Adwaita theme or Xburn removes many, many (over 30 sometimes) seemingly unrelated packages that I wanted to keep. I’d like to pick and choose apps (many from Xfce). Will LxQt be a good choice? I’m too cowardly to try WM i3 just yet. I hated KDE. Is there a difference testing out LxQt in a VM or live usb - I am able to do either or both. I use Debian.
Iirc, Adwaita is the default theme for Gnome and thus most GTK apps. That’s why a lot of packages pull it in as a dependency.